Just got my 4x2 from monoprice this morning. If you live on the west coast the California Overnight option is great- package delivered at 7:09AM! These are my quick impressions.

The box is unexpectedly large with thick foam packaging. The unit itself was bigger than I expected, about 3 times the size of the monoprice 4x1 switch. The front has 2 buttons to cycle inputs independently for output A and B. The remote is as described above with 2 banks of 4 buttons labeled A and B. No buttons for cycling through inputs. Setup was about 30 seconds to move everything from my 4x1 switch.

This is my setup... Tivo HD, Xbox 360, and Toshiba HD-A1 are the inputs. Output A is to a Westinghouse LVM42W2 in my living room by way of a 50ft monoprice HDMI cable. Output B is to a Sanyo PLV60HT projector in the den by way of a 35ft monoprice HDMI-DVI cable -> HDFury -> VGA port. All sources are set to 1080i out.

Using the matrix switch is as easy as pressing the buttons. Picture quality is identical to my previous setup. Initially had some sync problems with the HDFury, but reconnecting the output B cable solved that. Everything works perfectly.

Overall, I am extremely happy. I would recommend this switch to anybody, especially considering that the price is less than 1/4 of the competition's.

Couple of notes... I am using this for 1080i video distribution only, because it keeps the LCD and projector happy. I don't have HDMI in either of my receivers, so I can't comment on the audio side of things.

Let me know about any questions.

The lights on the front of this thing are VERY BRIGHT. Might affect your placement.

Got mine hooked up last night. Very straight forward. The only observation I have so far is that it takes more time to negotiate the HDMI handshake between input device and display (>10-15 seconds) when compared to the 4x1 switch. Not a big problem though. Otherwise the matrix switching works as advertised.

The lights are very bright. I'll try to upload some pics of packaging and the unit in action later tonight.

I believe you Chris. I have ordered one of this and I will get it today or tomorrow, I will let you know if there are any differences. Right now I’m running 4X1 Enhanced HDMI Switch with built-in Equalizer (REV.2.5) its very nice, but I want to see if there is any differences between 4x2 1.3a and the 4x1. As much as I heat to say that but maybe your switch is bad, for that you can’t pass the audio!!

The only bad thing about these is the Bright blue LEDs. They are annoying. Also has anyone been able to get the auto priority working? The only way I an get it to switch to the higher priority input is to turn it off then back on and you can't do that with the remote.

I got mine yesterday. I have a toshiba tv and a acer projector that I switch between. My inputs are a panasonic dvd player, dish vip722 and an xbox 360. The switcher passes the audio fine with my box. The box does have some quirks though. It detects both my tv and projector weather they are on or off, and switches inputs for them. This causes me to have to switch the projector input when it is on the source I want for the tv. Both won't work at the same time with the Dish vip722. I'd be happier if when the projector is off it wouldn't lock one of the sources.
This brings me to another point. The light in front (The Bright as Heck Ones) don't really tell you anything. With two outputs connected, two of the input lights will be lit, but there is no way to know which input and output are matched. Over all I'd have to say that it does the job and it's better than pluging and unpluging cables.

... It detects both my tv and projector weather they are on or off, and switches inputs for them. This causes me to have to switch the projector input when it is on the source I want for the tv. Both won't work at the same time with the Dish vip722. I'd be happier if when the projector is off it wouldn't lock one of the sources.
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Mark

What is with this? stumax reported that simultaneous output of the same source does work. Is this a Dish box only problem or does nothing work in dual viewing mode?

If you connect one of the 4x2 outputs to one of the HDMI inputs of a Receiver, will it pass audio and video to the HDTV? The reason I ask is that my Gefen matrix switcher won't do so now, but supposedly will when their new Z chip is available.

I've had this unit for a couple of days and am not happy. As has been reported, it locks onto sources even when they are turned off, my Optoma projector takes a long time to sync, the lights are useless and it doesn't pass the correct resolution. On the other hand, my Octava 5 x 1 switch has worked flawlessly for over a year. I need to drive a second display but this doesn't cut it. Back to manually changing the cable.

I just west two hours of trying and I'm totally not happy with this switch at all! Only one of the HDMI work for dish network video only no sound at all, and my oppo 980 flash for 2 seconds with out sound and drop, and the remote it’s a joke no point for at all. only HDMI-B out work but A it doesn’t.
I have 4x1 connecting my HD DISH Network VIP722, oppo DV-981H, and HTPC its good and do the job.

I had the exact same problem where output B works fine but output A doesn't. I'm waiting on a replacement unit from monoprice. Unfortunately, based on the other comments above, I'm not holding out much hope for HDMI switching nirvana.

OK I got my Monoprice 4X2 "True Matrix" switcher today, and here's another one that will be going back (or sold) due to a multitude of issues with my setup. Basically, I'm disillusioned with HDMI as a whole, and the issues it has in trying to be a jack of all trades. For example, if you have a TV that supports 1080p but a receiver (like the Panasonic XR-57) that can only pass 1080i, you can't do 1080p/multichannel HDMI audio even with a switcher like this due to the handshake issues of HDMI. True 1080i with a good de-interlacer should be equivalent to 1080p, but that's not the point.

Anyways, I will describe my issue, as I discovered it today on setting up my system:

There is an HDMI handshake issue between the Monoprice 4X2 switcher and the XR-57 that causes the video resolution of my HD-DVD player to default to 720p sometimes when powered on (1080i works sometimes, other times gives a "U 70-1-2" error on the display of my XR-57 receiver, which is a HDMI video handshake issue). The switcher, in conjunction with the receiver seems to force my HD-DVD player to 720p, which my TV is not compatible with. So I get a blank picture. What's a real b!tch is that in the Toshiba HD-A2 menu there's no "force 1080i" video setting; there's 480i, 480p, "up to 720'" and "up to 1080i" meaning if you set 1080i the player can autosense what it thinks is better - 1080i or 720p. Without any switchers, or using the 5X1 monoprice switch it goes to 1080i everytime. The 4X2 switcher for some reason causes it to set itself to 720p sometimes, and the only way to fix it is to remove the 4X2 switch from the chain and let the devices reconnect and establish a connection at 1080i.

Here's my setup:

-Panasonic 47" CRT 1080i HDTV w/ one DVI port (has HDCP) <-- means I have to use a DVI to VGA adaptor for the TV
-Panasonic SA-XR57 HDMI receiver (can pass 1080i video but not 1080p; not an issue for me as my TV only supports 1080i)
-Toshiba HD-A2 with the latest firmware (2.5) - I've tried several versions of the Toshiba firmware using my old 5X1 Monoprice switcher, and it would always lead to video cutting out after 5-10 minutes.
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Here's my known working configuration:

I connect the HDMI out port of the HD-A2 HD-DVD player to the Panny XR-57 receiver, and the receiver's one HDMI out port to the TV. The cable going into the TV is a DVI to HDMI cable.

Works like a charm, and before the HD-DVD player I used a Rogers Cable (I'm in Canada) HD Box as well as a 1080i Panasonic upscaling DVD player on my older Monoprice 5X1 HDMI switcher with no problems or handshake issues (I didn't use HDMI for audio, only video).

Here's exactly what happens (and why I wanted to try the 4X2 switch in the first place):

I first started having issues once I bought my Toshiba HD-A2 player. Video when watching an HD-DVD would just cut out after 5-10 minutes. I was using the Monoprice HDX-501 5 port HDMI switch (supports HDMI 1.3 or 1.2a so it claims; regardless, it should have no problem passing 1080i video with 5.1 channel PCM sound).

The switch worked fine passing a 1080i video signal from my Rogers 3200HD cable box, as well as a Panasonic 1080i upscaling DVD player. Sound went to my receiver by Optical or Digital Coaxial.

Now, upon getting an HD player (the aforementioned HD-A2), along with the 5X1 video switcher, the video would cut out after watching an HD-DVD (or regular DVD for that matter) on the HD-A2. My makeshift solution was to remove the switch from the equation: it worked fine but of course I can't watch my HD box in digital anymore; I have to use component video which looks not so hot on my TV.

I figured this switch would be a possible answer to my prayers but boy was I wrong.

The 4X2 switch right out of the gate gave me a couple errors on the XR-57 receiver that I had never gotten before (the "U 70-1-2" error that indicates an error in being able to understand the HDMI video format) as well as occasionally giving a brief "U 70-1-1 error which is an HDCP error, but this went away as it was just because the switcher sometimes takes a couple extra seconds for HDMI handshakes to go through).

However after turning off my devices and going to play an HD-DVD again I noticed that the video would sometimes set itself to 720p on my HD-DVD player - an issue it never had. It only does this while the 4X2 switcher is connected.

My setup at this point in time looked like this:

I had the HD cable box on input 1 and tried the HD-DVD player on inputs 1 through 4 on the 4X2 switcher, output A went to my HDTV, output B went to the receiver. I also tried swapping output A and B.

No combination would work; ultimately sometimes the HD player would boot up in 720p, which my TV cannot read. The HD cable box worked fine, just like it does on my older 5X1 switch.
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So, I figured, one more kick at the can, since I only need to use HDMI for audio on the HD-DVD player, why not try going out from the HD-DVD player straight to the XR-57 receiver, then out from the receiver to the switch; I could then connect my HD cable box to another input on the 4X2 switch and use either Output A or B to the TV.

It worked perfectly -- at first. HD Cable box worked fine as always.

But sure enough, sometimes I'd turn the setup on, and there would be no picture with HD-DVD and the player clearly read 720p on its display.

What a nightmare.

I really need a TV with 2-3 HDMI inputs to fix my problem - but what about if I need another HDMI port for audio (like if I got a PS3 for BluRay)? Then I'd need a new receiver because my receiver has only 1 port and I've had all these issues just trying to get 1 device to work properly using a switch and my receiver...

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It really pisses me off that there's no choice but to use HDMI for video and audio (and the fact that there's so many issues with it). If HDMI was flawless, then I'd be giddy that I only had to use one cable.

But with so many compatibility issues and the whole problem with having to go through a receiver for "HD" audio which may not support the same standards (120hz, 24hz, 1080p, etc) that your TV does, there should be another path for consumers.

Frankly, my not so perfect but otherwise functional suggestion would be to bundle anything capable of playing HD video and audio with two HDMI out ports: one for the video stream and one for the audio stream. It could cause exponentially fewer HDMI handshake issues, unless of course they beefed up HDCP or added an audio component for lossless audio streams (which I wouldn't put past Hollywood...).

HDMI is a good standard, and it's a nice high bandwidth cable that effectively takes the place of DVI and is a next-gen audio cable (since it supports more bandwidth than optical or digital coax). But the HDCP handshake issues, as well as the fact that audio receivers have to also act as video switchers means that it just has too many jobs for one interconnect, and the resulting problem is all of these compatibility issues we have. This doesn't even take into account cable length issues, cable quality (many older HDMI cables, especially long runs, like in-wall cables, supposedly won't be able to pass HDMI 1.3 signals - ie. 1080p + HD audio bitstreams), etc.

It really pisses me off that there's no choice but to use HDMI for video and audio (and the fact that there's so many issues with it). If HDMI was flawless, then I'd be giddy that I only had to use one cable.